This week’s Most Eligible Dallas lesson, boys and girls? Courtney Kerr and Matt Nordgren deserve each other. Matt is a womanizing dog who thinks that he can do anything he wants as long as he doesn’t pretend not to do it. And Courtney is so completely in denial about her feelings for Matt that she’s willing to lose her ladylike demeanor every time she thinks about a woman who might supplant her #1 position in his harem. Let’s slow down, though. Here’s how things developed on the show in week two.
The episode opened in Matt’s office at Nordco and we got a long pan of the skyline view from the window behind his desk. The narration? Matt telling us about how great his life is. Actually, he doesn’t just want us to know that his life is great, he wants us to know that his life is greater than our lives. Much greater. “I can live so much in one day versus what some people can’t do in weeks or months,” he says. “It is real good to be me.” Then, we find out that Matt’s Dad is (almost) as happy with Matt as Matt is. Great.
The next scene has Matt in his car on the phone with Neill, making plans to come see her and her band practice at their studio space. He arrives, two lattes in hand, and we get a split second of Neill’s voice. Can she sing? Well, based on other footage of her, I’d say that she’s OK; but, you’d never know it from this scene. We barely hear a syllable.
Matt’s duly impressed, though. The band leaves the room, and Matt and Neill make googly eyes on the studio’s love seat. They talk a bit about Courtney and the scene she made at the dinner from Episode 1, but that just seems like more fodder for flirting.
The camera cuts to Drew’s morning routing. He’s shaving and dressing and talking about still feeling fat inside. He’s ready for a relationship, and he’s going to see a matchmaker to prove that he’s serious about it. Then he says some really odd stuff about matchmakers and throws around a string of Yiddish terms that made me cringe. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t mean to be anti-semitic; he’s just painfully clueless and impossibly callous. So, we’ll move on.
Now, it is Drew’s turn to be in a car. He’s with Daylon, and they’re driving to their meeting with the matchmaker. He’s looking for a man who wants to have children and who can deal with his “rabbit-like symptoms of horniness,” but that’s not exactly what he tells the matchmaker. In fact, he spends the whole visit to her office looking very, very uncomfortable. Me thinks this appointment may not have been his idea. I smell a producer.
We’ve been away from the Matt and Courtney plot line for almost 3 minutes now, so it is past time to get back to it. We join Matt and Courtney for dinner and the conversation about the Neill dinner that we’ve all been waiting for; but, it isn’t very satisfying. Courtney sticks to her guns and criticizes Neill for leaving her son at home while she goes out on the town. Matt gets holier than thou about what he calls Courtney’s “judgmentalness”
After commercial, we’re back to Courtney and Matt’s fight, and things take a turn for the postmodern. Courtney accuses Matt of “pinning her as the villain,” and I’m starting to think that Courtney might not just be upset about the prospect of Matt dating someone else. She might be upset at the idea that she might not be the female lead of Most Eligible Dallas. She thought she was going to be Scarlett O’Hara to Matt’s Rhett Butler, but then there’s Neill. Courtney’s surprise when Neill showed up at the Episode 1 dinner may have been entirely genuine, but not just for the reasons we’ve been led to believe.
Then Matt says that the situation with Neill has brought to light how different he and Courtney really are. Hmmmm . . . why is Matt even asking himself that question? Could Courtney not be the only one lying to herself about what’s up in this relationship?
We break away from Matt and Courtney again, but this time we join Glen and his photographer from Episode 1 comes over to show him the photos from their shoot. If you thought Matt was pushing the envelope of how much a man could love himself, then brace yourself. Glenn’s self-love is epic. He is speechless when he sees the pics of himself by the pool. Then, he is giddy. “I’m looking pretty good,” he says. “I’m not gonna lie.”
Next, we’re off to the pool with Courtney and her mom, and we learn that they have no secrets. Courtney wonders if this is why she doesn’t have a boyfriend. Umm . . . maybe. Tara joins them, and gets to witness mom telling Courtney to give Neill another chance. I’m impressed with the power of the mama. You can feel the steam coming off Courtney, but she agrees to make another dinner date.
Still by the pool with Courtney and her mom, Tara announces that she has a date with Jody, a local DJ who is a friend of hers. This will be the first time, she says, that she goes out on a date with someone who started out as her friend. Huh? Really? OK, I guess. Weird. Courtney doesn’t approve. Jody’s been married before and he “has to be ancient.” She runs through her unbelievably detailed account of what Tara’s Mr. Right would be like. Courtney has an idea or two about how things should be, doesn’t she?
After the commercial, we get to see Matt shave again, and then he’s in the car and on the phone. This time, he’s inviting three women to have dinner with him, none of whom know that he has invited the others. He claims that everyone he dates knows that this is how he rolls, but these women seem surprised . . . and unhappy.
When Matt leaves the table for a minute, I catch myself hoping that they’ll bond with each other and go completely Bachhae on him; but, it doesn’t happen. Matt wishes they could all be in a hot tub, but the women just want to get out of there. Kat, who is the only one who drove with Matt, goes back to his house with him “for a nightcap.”
Edited in between scenes of Matt’s group date are scenes from Drew’s matchmaker-arranged blind date and Tara’s experimentation in dating friend Jody. Drew’s date is a disaster. The man, J.D., seems nice enough; but, he’s way too short for Drew and he’s a red-headed Mexican. These are prohibitive factors that Drew just assumed any decent matchmaker would take for granted. When J.D. tells Drew that he has no interest in children, it is all Drew can do not to run out on the check. There’s no good-bye kiss for these guys; Drew looks like he’s having to make a Herculean effort just to give J.D. a hug before he gets into his car.
Tara’s date is very different, but not any better. Where do you take a germaphob on the first date? A bowling alley, of course. Tara is first worried that they’re going to give her used socks to wear with her bowling shoes. Then we see her bowling with a floppy plastic glove on her hand. And, even then, she shudders at the thought of what she’s doing and touching. She gets a strike, though, and a hug from Jody, who is trying way too hard. (And he has the tiniest, most awkward, soul patch on his chin I have ever seen. How can something so tiny be so awkward?) In the parking lot, as they leave, he manages to get into a fender-bender. Poor guy.
The last couple of segments feature Drew and Glenn working out together and talking. Are they trying to suggest that Drew has a crush on Glenn? I don’t see it, to be honest. And, besides, Glenn is already spoken for . . . by Glenn.
With less than 5 minutes to go, Neill, Courtney, and Tara rendezvous to give each other another chance. Neill is late, though, and Tara and Courtney finish a bottle of wine before she gets there. By the droopy eyes and slurred voice, I’m guessing Courtney drank more than her share. And, she embarrasses herself again. Instead of apologizing, she just keeps making things worse.
Neill handles things pretty gracefully, all things considered; but, you just can’t help but think she’d never be sitting at this table with these women unless someone had orchestrated it. There’s nothing organic going on here, except perhaps what Courtney’s body is doing with all that Sauvignon Blanc.
Neill decides to leave, and who could blame her? Tara says she’s never seen Courtney like that before. Love makes a person do crazy things, right? The next morning, Matt calls Courtney to tell her how disappointed he is in her, that he wants her to hash things out with Neill, and then hangs up.
This show is more and more seeming to me like an experiment in what you can get people to do just by telling them to. Will Courtney try to make up with Neill? Probably, but why? Will Neill show up again to watch the crazy parade? Yep, I’m pretty sure she will. It is probably in her contract. In fact, I’m starting to wonder how much of what we’re seeing is completely staged.
You don’t have to watch much reality TV to know that there’s a lot of scripted scenes on those shows; but, were there any unscripted ones on this show? Did any of these people make any of these decisions? Drew didn’t want to go to a matchmaker. That’s clear. Whose idea was it to take Tara to a bowling alley? Call me crazy, but I don’t think it was Jody. So, how much of Matt’s crazy dating practices are the real deal? Maybe Courtney really isn’t such a bitch.
Either the producers of this show don’t think these guys can make engaging TV on their own, or they just don’t understand why “reality” TV appeals to so many of us. Or, perhaps, they were only doing what they were told as well.
